Cambridge City Hall

State of the art upgrade to Cambridge City Hall, blended smoothly into the existing aesthetic.

Aesthetic Concerns

One of the core themes of the project was that the space needed to have the latest in technology, without taking away from the history and architecture of the building. By providing a 12,000 Lumen, WUXGA projector (Panasonic PT-DZ13K), we were able to provide a stunning image over 15 ft diagonal, while still allowing natural sunlight and architectural lighting to fill the space. To provide HD broadcast-quality imagery from the hall, we outfitted the room with four Panasonic HD PTZ cameras and one HD static camera, to view the space from all angles, controlled from the broadcast booth. The room is completely controlled by a Crestron control system, built with 3 touchpanels, all with capabilities based on their location. Higher level functions, such as pin-pad lockout and real-time microphone level feedback, were upgrades provided to the control interface. With the ability for the system to be reconfigurable and grow over time, this is truly a one-of-a-kind design we are extremely proud of.

Audio Issues

Due to the wood and plaster surfaces in the hall, traditional audio would typically suffer from reverberation and echo throughout the space. To solve this problem, we provided steerable line array speakers in the space (JBL DC280), which could be controlled to apply proper audio levels to each location in the building, while avoiding areas that would cause reverb in the room. The final effect gives even sound throughout the entire space, without the echo.

Lighting Control

Where the hall is used for closed door meetings, as well as television broadcasts, there are many different lights throughout the space, allowing for many different variations of lighting patterns. To simplify this system, we placed all of the lighting controls onto the Crestron touch-panels, and further simplified preset settings based on their ideal usage. This allows the users to easily set the lights to the ideal configuration for television broadcasts, or any number of standard uses.

Multiple Configurations

Because the hall has may different settings and uses, the room really needed to have multiple configurations. To address this issue, we provided a multimedia cart, to act as a landing location for both microphones and video inputs. This cart can be plugged into any of 4 locations throughout the hall for presentations. We have set the system up to auto-sense where the cart is plugged in, so it adapts the back-end presentation gear to accommodate that location.

Spillover Space

Because of the finite space of the hall, they need to be able to use other locations in the building as spillover space. We have provided 6 overflow monitors throughout the building, each with the ability to view a live stream of the proceedings in the hall. We also included the ability for closed door streaming, to the Ackerman Conference Room, for private spillover.